Doesn’t quite match the test bowl but damn.
Beauty for beauty’s sake.
unrelated ideas
When I made the bowls, I glazed a test bowl. A mix of blue and pellegreeno. Finding it today on the shelf was such an unknown joy. Joy that felt just right. In my hands I held a little tide pool.
Last year a group of girls in my classroom would regularly give birth. They held the soft dolls in their small arms, soothing the toys until growing bored and assigning someone to act out the role of baby. They made sense of a new sibling or, in one girls case, twins. Play helped them process.
My grandmother died in a hurricane. I can say that, the truth isn’t contradictory. My grandmother was on a hospice bed, riddled with cancer of the blood, surrounded by her three children. They bunkered down, for the storm and her end. I thought about that as I drove over tonight.
this sparks joy
figuring ish out
For a few months I’ve known I’m heading in the right direction. Its just a feeling— that I’m heading in the right direction. I am working on a residency application and if I don’t get it then I’ll work on another application and put my heart into that. I’m pleased by how it’s becoming easier to talk about myself and why I do what I do. Others peoples confusion about the way I work doesn’t feel as overbearing. Other peoples opinions about what I do don’t feel like truths. I made some really beautiful things this week, some of them being conclusions, none of them being fish.
Bowl heavy
I got Sonora white from a free pile. It’s second from the left in the third row.
The clay is so white after bisque but supposedly it’ll yellow after glaze.
I made seven bowls, expecting one or two to be duds. I documented a lot of the process via video. I want to be able to see technique in action. I see people do this in the studio all the time but it felt awkward. Being perceived is hard!
Happy with all the bowls for the most part. I have an old small bowl I’ve been holding onto that I used for a test. Here it is in the background with the glaze combo I used on it.
Im proud of each bowl individually but as a set I’m still unsure how cohesive they’ll be. Time will tell!
What I do with reminders
Make 30 fish
reminders
I go to ceramics because
it’s play
you can get lost in the mud of it all
v hot men and having eye candy is nice
long days in the classroom means I need to take care of myself more
glazes don’t make sense and I like a challenge
I learn a lot from not knowing something formally
that last one is another benefit of play
not knowing when pieces will be out
it forces me to slow down
Lulls
My hand built lid didn’t make it fully thru the kiln. It’s still functional as a lid, but wouldn’t be flush anymore with the base. As I made more fish with sophie we talked artistic processes. Ceramics is a different beast than my other mediums. So much is out of my control and on other people’s timelines.
I have to create work arounds and act in response to. Or accept that sometimes my lids will fall apart and my fish will turn out duller than I’d like.
With ceramics being more of an ongoing investment, unlike painting and collage, I feel a pressure to be creating. Historically if I felt that pressure I’d take a break, until joy came back to the process. When the work is inherently about grief, is there a space for this? There was never intended to be joy in the process, just relief. I’m left to question, am I feeling relief still?